MUP: Chapter 102. Purpose

"An eccentric masked man appears on the streets of New York, taking down bank robbers." -- New York Times.

"An early Halloween hoax or a costumed freak?" -- Daily Bugle.

Unsurprisingly, the debut of the young spider received a lot of attention from the media. The fledgling superhero managed to make it to the pages of the major New York media with his eccentric look, but of course, the vast majority of them didn't have anything good to say, especially Daily Bugle, which criticised the little spider from the start to finish.

Its position as 'Spider-Man's anti-fan' could be seen from the early stages.

"Peter, what happened?"

"Nothing, Aunt May. I accidentally fell out of bed."

"You should have been more careful."

"I know." Responding to his aunt, May Parker, who was on the ground floor, with a light shout, Peter turned his head to look at the mocking headline on the Daily Bugle. He couldn't help but grit his teeth and silently decided to give his costume a makeover.

"Next time, I'll surprise you."

　　...

[Reputation points from New York citizen +0.01]

[Reputation points from New York citizen +0.02]

[Reputation points from New York citizen +0.01]

In the antique shop, Ryan looked at the points on the data panel that kept coming up once in a while with a bemused expression.

In fact, the young spider wasn't the only one to show up in the newspaper articles today. Steel Staff Shell also made an appearance. For one thing, in the chaotic scene at that time, the scene of him blocking bullets with his steel staff was seen by a lot of people. The steel staff-wielding Shell, in terms of being a talkable subject, was clearly no match for the eccentrically dressed young spider.

Therefore, although the media had reported it, it was mostly just a blurb and didn't attract as much attention as the young spider.

In response, Ryan's emotions were both regretful and grateful.

Unfortunately, if he did get a lot of coverage, Ryan would undoubtedly gain a significant amount of points, even if points gained through the media weren't actually as much as people seeing him in person. After all, 'many a little makes a muckle', and it was still a significant amount of points.

If, of course, things did turn out that way.

Shell's identity, too, wouldn't be able to stay in front of Stark Industries forever.

After all, the reason why Ryan arranged for Shell to squat in front of Stark Industries while operating the food truck was in part for surveillance work and his daily dose of Tony's reputation points. As the future Iron Man, Tony himself was always a part of major battles. Keeping an eye on Tony would more or less help Ryan understand where in the timeline the events were taking place, as well as allow him to prepare in advance and prepare plots to harvest points.

After all, compared with Hulk, who was still on the run, or Captain America, who was still lying in the Arctic, or Thor, who was far away in Asgard and hadn't even touched Earth...

Tony was one of the highest-profile Avengers. However, he would suffer from his excessive high profile in the future.

But from Ryan's point of view, such a high profile would help him to observe the layout in secret.

　　...

At night, in a camp in Afghanistan.

Obadiah appeared surrounded by live ammunition.

"Welcome."

The man with burns on his face stepped forward, noticed Obadiah's eyes, and pointed to the wound on his face, "Compliments of Tony Stark."

"If you'd killed him when you were supposed to, you'd still have a face." Frowning, Obadiah couldn't help but comment.

"You paid us trinkets to kill a prince."

Shaking his head, the man answered with a cold expression.

"Show me the weapon."

Aware that there was no point in continuing to talk about the matter, Obadiah immediately changed the subject. He risked his life to come to Afghanistan; he didn't want to spend too much time quarrelling with the other party. A few days ago, a mysterious iron man suddenly appeared on the battlefield in the Middle East and successfully defeated the local militants.

"Come. Leave your guards outside."

Waving and letting the bodyguards behind him stay outside, Obadiah tidied up his clothes and followed the man to the tent without hesitation.

Obadiah instantly recognised the steel armour in the centre of the tent. Although the shape of the armour was rather crude, Obadiah immediately linked it to the one that had appeared in the Middle East a few days earlier.

"His escape bore unexpected fruit. This is only a first crude effort."

　　...

"Tony."

Stark cliff side villa, basement.

Pepper found Tony, who was adjusting his armour.

"Hey. Are you busy? Do you mind if I send you on an errand?" Hearing Pepper coming in, Tony stood up and brought out the equipment he had already prepared, "I need you to go to my office and hack into the mainframe, and you're gonna retrieve all the recent shipping manifest... this is a locked chip. This will get you in."

Reaching for the chip, Pepper looked at Tony and asked with a worried face, "And what do you plan to do with this information if I bring it back here?"

"Same drill." Turning and continuing to adjust the armour, Tony replied, "They've been dealing under the table, and I'm going to stop them."

"Tony, you know that I would help you with anything. But, I cannot help you if you're going to start all of this again."

"There's nothing except this! Is it so difficult to do this one thing for me?!"

The encounters over this period of time seemed to have made Tony extremely unstable, and he couldn't help but speak up and yell at Pepper.

"Well, then I quit."

Raising her hand and putting the chip down, Pepper replied.

"You stood by my side all these years while I reaped the benefits of destruction. And now that I'm trying to protect the people that I put in harm's way, you're going to walk out?"

"You're gonna kill yourself, Tony." Stopping, Pepper replied to Tony.

Since that day, Stark Industries had been on the verge of a crisis because of Tony's actions.

"I shouldn't be alive unless it was for a reason. I'm not crazy, Pepper. I just finally know what I have to do. And I know in my heart that it's right. Please, help me."

Faced with Tony's request, the expression on Pepper's face struggled for a while before she hesitated to pick up the chip again, "I hope you won't lie to me again this time."

"Thank you, Pepper. "